WEC (World Endurance Championship) 2014

[WhiteBlue]

Wurz is now replaced by Nakijima and they have also changed from treaded inters to slicks

[WhiteBlue]

So far in raw speed the Audis have been the fastest, but both cars have suffered from accidents in the rain. Toyota is profiting from having more reliable drivers out there.

[mep]

That looks like some proper motorsport. Much more puristic than F1 is these days.

[Cold Fussion]

Wouldn't pay for this level of coverage. If I'm going to play, I'd expect a reliable 720p stream, and this is quite far from reliable.

[sstanescu]

Complain directly to the contact e-mail. This is the only way to let them know they did a shoddy job, including the payment for each platform (PC, phone...). I did it, for the race they let the livetiming free and with the announcement that for now you cannot use the subscription multi-platform, which gives hope for the next race. Complain, and we might get it!

[mep]

OMG this has to be seen.
One of the Audis just tries to drive through the gravel trap with both front suspensions completely destroyed.

[WhiteBlue]

This was a great race as we predicted for WEC 2014 racing. Many people thought that WEC racing would suffer with the new rules but the opposite was the case.

The mixed conditions at Silverstone were a bit misleading regarding the pecking order in WEC 2014. My prediction is that in the end Toyota will fall behind both Porsche and Audi.

Audi had the pace on everybody in the dry which is a strong hint that there is much to come. Porsche obviously build the most fuel efficient car judging by the periods of the race when things were undistorted by safety cars and changing weather.

I'm looking forward to a thrilling season where the shoddy TV coverage is the only complaint that I really have. I paid 5€ for the race online stream and got rewarded with lots of server holes in the coverage. The money was ok, but the service was really bad compared to F1 which I get in HD and with 100% reliability for about twice the money.

[machin]

What do you guys think? Will there be sand bagging to avoid BoP measures before Le Mans?

Are you talking about LMP1-H? There is no Balance of Performance... only Balance of Kinetic energy (called Equivalence of Technology, or EoT) which, with the FIA mandated fuel meter and Torque meters, is impossible to falsify;

1, The manufacturer's declared what they can achieve from the fuel in terms of kW/kg.Hour.
2, The best Petrol and the best Diesel kW/kg.hour is selected by the FIA.
3, The FIA provide a per lap fuel allotment and a total fuel capacity to ensure that the top Petrol and the top Diesel have the same kinetic energy per lap.
4, If any manufacturer beats the kW/kg.hour values from step 2 during the race they will be penalised.

There is simply no room for sand-bagging in LMP1-H in 2014, and the FIA have declared there will be no changes to steps 2 and 3 in the process above until after Le Mans.

Good race though, and with the similar speeds of the Toyotas and Audis at the beginning of the race clearly the EoT is working quite well (although even if EoT is working well, there is no reason to expect lap times to be similar, since EoT does not aim to equalise overall performance (which is affected by chassis and aero design).

[machin]

. Porsche obviously build the most fuel efficient car judging by the periods of the race when things were undistorted by safety cars and changing weather.

I think it is difficult to say that with certainty... the Porsche #20 did achieve one 29 lap stint compared to the Toyota's 28 lap stints (in green-flag, "dry", conditions), but the Toyota was quicker over the same period... Porsche could simply have toned down their power (hence fuel usage) to eek out the extra lap.... Or Toyota might have been giving themselves a bigger safety margin on fuel remaining when they came in.... it is impossible to say....

[machin]

I thought this little info-graphic might help explain the equalisation process....

[WhiteBlue]

I have no doubt that Porsche has the most fuel efficient petrol car. They have the lowest fuel allowance because they race in the highest recovery class. So they inherently are more fuel efficient than Rebellion and Toyota if they manage to use less fuel.

In my view there is still balance of performance although they now give it a different name. If they wanted to make it a fair contest they would simply give diesel and petrol the same amount of fuel energy. In such a race the diesels would probably still win because they have a higher level of developed technology.

Frankly spoken I don't understand what the ACO/FiA are doing there. This table posted by machine mentions kinetic energy which is a different way of saying that the ACO/FiA are artificially balancing the petrol/diesel energy allocation. After Le Mans the allocation may be adjusted if that appears to be needed.

Is there any information what kind of power output at a given fuel flow and therefore brake thermal efficiency the prototypes reached?

[WhiteBlue]

If you look at the regulations the Diesels get ~5% less _energy_ per lap than the gasolines

The Diesels get a fuel per lap allowance that has a calorific value 6% less (not 5%) than the petrols. However the reason is that according to the specific fuel consumption figures provided by the manufacturers*, Audi's Diesel engine is 6% more efficient (6% higher BHP per hour per MJ of fuel calorific content burnt) than the better of Porsche/Toyota's engines, i.e. the best Diesel and the Best Petrol engined cars will have the same mechanical energy per lap (note distinction between mechanical energy and the calorific content of the fuel).

i.e. The cars are balanced to achieve equal mechanical energy, not calorific content of the fuel burnt and not lap time.

Now, whether you agree that balancing mechanical energy output is "fair" is an entirely different question...

(* if any manufacturer exceeds their declared specific fuel consumption figure (kg per BHP per hour) they will be penalised.)

Ah, I have found the data. It is like I thought. Diesels are currently still 6% more efficient than petrol cars. And the process for EoT is still full of potential sand bagging.

Nobody can stop a manufacturer to post lower power output than actually achieved. If they go for a low weigh strategy they can simply compensate by running the engine with lower than maximum power and running more laps than they would normally do. This strategy would also help reliability. So we cannot know at all if anybody has been sandbagging in the procedure up to the last EoT decision.

[machin]

I have no doubt that Porsche has the most fuel efficient petrol car. They have the lowest fuel allowance because they race in the highest recovery class. So they inherently are more fuel efficient than Rebellion and Toyota if they manage to use less fuel.

Both Toyota and Porsche run in the 6MJ hybrid class, so they have the same fuel allowance per lap... (Porsche changed from the 8MJ to 6MJ class in the past few weeks).

In order to know for certain which car is the more fuel efficient we either need the two cars to do the same number of laps whilst using the exact same amount of fuel (then the faster one is the more efficient), or we need two cars to travel at exactly the same speed (and then the one that does the most number of laps will be the most efficient). As it is we have two cars, one going slower and doing more laps, and the other going faster and doing less laps. Its like in your road car; if you drive at 70mph you'll get less mpg than if you drive at 60mph....

[machin]

Nobody can stop a manufacturer to post lower power output than actually achieved. If they go for a low weigh strategy they can simply compensate by running the engine with lower than maximum power and running more laps than they would normally do. This strategy would also help reliability. So we cannot know at all if anybody has been sandbagging in the procedure up to the last EoT decision.

I wouldn't call that sand-bagging. That is called running the engine at its "optimum" conditions (where "optimum" means balancing power output, with fuel economy, with reliability).

Because there is only one competitor in the Diesel class then nothing stops Audi from running its engine exactly at the output level it wants and the FIA will balance it against the best petrol. But Audi can't then simply "turn up the wick" on their engine because then they'll break the kW/kg.hour figure that has been agreed with the FIA (sadly, undeclared to the public), which is monitored in real-time during the races by the FIA using the flow meter and torque meter. Since the kW/kg.hour figure is locked in until after Le Mans there is no benefit in sandbagging in any race.

It is slightly different in the petrol class where there is more than one competitor. There are two options for the petrol competitors; they club together and declare the same kW/kg.hour figure to the FIA and then they will both have the same Kinetic Energy available per lap in which to try and beat the Diesels... however the better option is simply to work your socks off and try and achieve the best kW/kg.hour figure you can, then (if you are the best petrol) you will only have one competitor on equal footing (the best Diesel), and hopefully you'll have more Kinetic energy available per lap than all your petrol competitors. Again, there is no allowance for "sandbagging" because the kW/kg.hour is locked by the FIA until after Le Mans and it is monitored in real-time by the FIA during the races using the fuel meter and torque meter carried by each LMP1-H car. If it turns out you're not the best petrol then you need to work hard to get your engine up to the same kW/kg.hour figure as the class leading petrol.

Basically the FIA did this because they didn't want to favour Diesel over Petrol (or vice versa), but also they didn't want to penalise the aerodynamic and chassis departments of the respective manufacturers just because their engine department have done a good job. i.e. in order to beat the class needing car from the other fuel category you can have better aero, better chassis, better drivers, better reliability.

I think it is a very good process except for one thing: since there is only one Diesel competitor there is absolutely no need for Audi to develop their engine; the FIA will simply balance them up to the same Kinetic Energy output as the best Petrol... and that seems a bit unfair...

[machin]

Is there any information what kind of power output at a given fuel flow and therefore brake thermal efficiency the prototypes reached?

Unfortunately the FIA press release on the subjects specifically states that the kW/kg.hour figures will NOT be made public....